


Control

by the_angst_alchemist



Series: Testing [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Brainwashing, Eye Trauma, Gen, I mention more characters than show up, I went way too into detail about this, Inaccurate but painful, Kevin is panicking, Lauren what the heck no, Smiling God is basically screwing Kevin over, Stop - Freeform, Strexcorp, TAKE DOWN STREX FOR KEV, mouth cut open
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_angst_alchemist/pseuds/the_angst_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strex already caught Kevin. It's not like it can get worse for him.</p><p>Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

Kevin's footsteps were slow and steady in his small prison. It wasn't a flat, no matter what they had said. There was a bed, and food, and running water, but he had no form of entertainment other than the Strexcorp Handbook, and he wasn't allowed to leave or eat. The eating was self-inflicted. He didn't trust them and their food--They could easily lace it with their drugs and brainwash him that way. Easy as pie. Pie sounded delicious, he noted.  
A moving shadow startled him, and he snatched his microphone from its resting spot, brandishing it as a weapon. The sudden movement blurred his vision, and he leaned against the wall to be able to remain standing. No reply from the shadow. There was nothing there, knowing his luck. He sighed, and slowly approached the window again. Tiny, next to no view, but a window nonetheless. He took a deep breath, and reminded himself what he had to survive for.  
Dylan was gone. Vanessa was dead. The town was trapped, just like him. All he had was a whisper on a radio he could no longer reach. Dana Cardinal. She had said her name was Dana Cardinal, Intern of Night Vale. Night Vale. Perhaps that place would be safer than what Desert Bluffs had become. Of course it would be. But it couldn't be better than what the Bluffs had been. Nothing was. He clutched the microphone close, and sighed. There wasn't any escape, not even to Night Vale. Strexcorp had gotten him. The scene replayed in his mind: Screams of "stop the revolter!" as he ran through the space, being dragged away from his broadcasting kit until the cord of the microphone snapped clean off.... He shuddered. They still hadn't given up on changing him into one of them. No matter how they tried, though, he was ready.  
It was so hard, though. Giving up felt like a much easier option, especially since he hadn't eaten or slept for a full day. Dana. He had to strong. Maybe he could meet her. Maybe he could talk to Dana, or escape with her, and make a new life in Night Vale. That was all that kept him going on. A dream. A guess. A prayer. How unlikely it felt, how much hope he had in a simple guess... He raised his hand to his scalp, and came away with a stain. He still hadn't stopped bleeding. He glanced up at the video camera he had already found, and he raised his hand to block it out.  
He felt pale, weak, destroyed. But he had to carry on. He hand to fight them. He had to keep rebelling against Strexcorp. The company wouldn't let him go unless he forced them to. But how? He had to escape. Escape wasn't an option. His eyes flickered across the room, searching for anything new. A heavy iron door. A tiny window. Yellow wallpaper a shade too orange. Everything pristine and perfect. Just as Strexcorp said he would be. They were lying.   
"You win, Kevin," Cecil had said during his call. "Everything goes right. You and community radio prevail. And you are happier than ever. Desert Bluffs is a wonderful town, and you live happily in it." He had taken Cecil's words for truth. Dana hadn't affirmed or denied that. He had to trust in those two. Trust in Night Vale. And then maybe, just maybe, they were right.  
A loud screech of the door disrupted his thought, and he turned around, raising the microphone in his defense. Before he could do anything else, a sharp pain hit his arm. He blinked at the shape in the doorway. "Dylan...?" Kevin asked, then dropped to the floor, tranquilized.  
He awoke in another room strapped to what seemed to be a hospital bed. Kevin tried to think, but instead he could only come up with screaming. A shape lingered in his vision— a white coated man. A scientist, probably. Kevin grimaced. Scientists were the worst to him, just behind Strexcorp. A Strexcorp scientist couldn't be any better than the two parts. He struggled against the bonds holding him down. No escape. Trapped. His heart sped up as his adrenaline rush began, his eyes searching for any escape, straining as hard as he could against the bindings.  
"Let me go, let me go, let me go!"  
"Kevin, there is nothing at all to fear." A feminine voice cooed. He spat towards it.   
"LET ME GO!"  
The bright smile on the woman's face dimmed slightly as she drug a hand across her face to clean it. "No," The woman calmly replied. "I'd prefer something else first... How about we remind you of something? You're up against all of productivity, the town, Strexcorp, and development. Are you sure that's a good idea, Kev?"  
"No one calls me Kev but Dylan," He snapped. "And heck yeah, I'm sure."  
"Then it seems we have to do this the hard way. Fredrick. His eyes."  
It only took an instant for the machine to do its work. Kevin couldn't see at all. His cheeks could feel something streaming down, but he was unsure whether it was blood or tears. Perhaps it was both. He had to bite back a scream.  
 _My eyes._  
"Now, Kev... There's one more thing we'd like to do. However. You do have a choice."  
"I'm not giving up," he mumbled to himself more than anyone else. "I'm not giving up."  
"It seems you've made your choice, then. Smile, dear."  
A sharp knife touched his lips before he even had an option to, carving a gash through his right cheek and then his left. "Perfect."  
Kevin couldn't even speak or think through the pain. He finally was released from the bond, and he only curled up slightly on the hospital bed, his face to the side. He reached his hand up to his face, and pressed it gently to the gashes and the tears he could still feel remaining. Blood. That was blood. He didn't have eyes. He didn't understand. He tried to cry, but nothing came out. His mouth was trapped in the carved smile.   
"I suppose you can see now why you should have obeyed." The woman breathed, grabbing his hair and pulling him along. Kevin nearly screamed, his pain intensifying with the gesture.   
She threw him into a room, and slammed the door. "I'll be back tomorrow to see how you're doing, Kev."  
He curled up tighter, and felt around the room, pressing his hands to every object in an attempt to identify it. He eventually found his microphone on the floor, and clutched it tight.  
"I'm sorry," he tried to say. "I'm sorry I failed you, Desert Bluffs. But I'm as dead as all of you."  
He tried to look at anything, to see again. He strained his eyes, but all that happened was more pain.   
He couldn't see, his mouth was torn, his eyes gone.   
Kevin rubbed a band on his face. How much of it was covered in red, now? How much of his room had red fingerprints on it? He clutched the microphone tighter, hoping it wasn't a crimson red as well. The pain was too much. He collapsed at last, unconscious from blood loss and pain.  
He awoke again to darkness, and it took a minute to recall that he was blind now. He could feel a presence nearby, but he wasn't sure how. He drew back the microphone, and nearly collapsed again.  
"Now, now, Kev. I'm not going to harm you. I'm just taking you to a better place for a moment."  
"You're corrupting me, that's what you're doing," he tried to say. His words came out strange. His mouth hurt even more. The woman giggled.  
"Well, you might see it as corruption. I see it as bringing you to the light."  
"Let me die instead."  
"We can fix you, Kevin."  
"You were the one who broke me in the first place."  
"We only want to remind you that rebellion sometimes isn't for the best. In your case, it's only damaging the perfect structure of society. We can get you back your old job, with the same Intern, in the same place. But you, Kevin Palmer, you have to stop acting like this." The woman sounded like she was scolding a child as she took Kevin's hand, pulling him along. "You can't just act like your rebellion is making anything any better."  
He forced himself to speak through his broken mouth. "It's better than blindly following a company I believe is tearing apart everything around me. You took my boyfriend, my best friend, my job, my home... Everything I had, you took away from me!"  
"And we'll give it back if you listen to us. We're almost there."  
"Almost where?"  
"Where I'm taking you, of course."  
Kevin heard a door unlocking, and then open. An intense feeling flooded his body, and he felt himself being drawn forwards.   
"Now. Listen to me, Kevin. Do you believe in a smiling god?"  
"Never."  
A long pause. He could feel something changing. Perhaps... No. He had to hold on.  
"Do you believe in a smiling god?"  
"I said never."  
A longer pause. He could see somehow. See without seeing. The woman grinned at him. The light was so intense, so beautiful, he didn't even need eyes to see it. The light of the smiling god. How beautiful...  
"Do you believe in a smiling god?" The woman repeated again.  
Kevin tried to say no. It came out wrong. "Yes." He could feel his mouth spreading into a broad smile, one he could not control, and the pain he felt was gone although his wounds were not. "I believe in a smiling god."  
"Welcome to Strexcorp, Kevin."  
He did not feel like Kevin. He felt more than that. Perfect.


End file.
